Trump
steps up demand to annex Greenland but rules out using force
US
president tells business and political leaders in Davos his country needs
ownership to defend ‘unsecured island’
Heather
Stewart in Davos
Wed 21
Jan 2026 16.20 CET
Donald
Trump has stepped up his demand to annex Greenland in an extraordinary speech
in Davos, but said the US would not use force to seize what he called the “big,
beautiful piece of ice”.
Addressing
thousands of business and political leaders at the World Economic Form in the
Swiss ski resort, the US president said he was “seeking immediate negotiations
to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland by the United States”.
“I don’t
want to use force. I won’t use force. All the US is asking for is a place
called Greenland,” he said. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative.
Or you can say no and we will remember.”
Referring
to the US record in the second world war as a justification for his demand,
Trump told the global audience: “Without us, now you’d all be speaking German,
or a little Japanese perhaps.”
He said
Denmark had been overrun by Germany “after just six hours of fighting”,
prompting the US to intervene “at great cost and expense”. He insisted that
only the US was now fit to defend “this enormous, unsecured island”.
Trump
said: “You need the ownership to defend it. You can’t defend it on a lease. Who
the hell wants to defend a licence agreement, or a lease?”
At
several points Trump appeared to confuse Greenland with Iceland, claiming
“Iceland” had caused a drop in stock prices on Tuesday – when markets fell as a
result of his threat to impose new tariffs on eight European countries.
Handing
over Greenland to the US would not represent a threat to Nato, he said,
praising its “excellent secretary general” and greeting Mark Rutte in the
audience.
But Trump
repeatedly returned to his argument that the US has had a raw deal from Nato,
funding the protection of other European countries. “We give so much, and we
get so little in return.”
He
suggested that while the US was ready to defend Nato allies, this backing might
not be returned. “We’re there for Nato 100%. I’m not sure if they’d be there
for us.” Mutual defence is a founding principle of the transatlantic alliance.
In a
rambling speech, the president also claimed to have delivered a historic
economic upturn at home, and rejected the idea of what he called the “new green
scam”, of switching from fossil fuels to clean energy.
“I want
Europe to do great, I want UK to do great; they’re sitting on one of the
greatest energy sources in the world and they don’t use it,” he said. “There
are windmills all over Europe, there are windmills all over the place, and they
are losers.”
He reeled
off a list of what he said were US economic achievements over the first 12
months of his second term. These included what he called “virtually no
inflation”, falling petrol prices, and rapid economic growth.
The
president claimed that under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, “we were a
dead country. Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
Trump
arrived late in Switzerland on Wednesday, after an electrical fault on Air
Force One forced him to switch planes, but cleared his diary to address the
high-powered gathering on time.
The
president’s threat at the weekend to slap punitive tariffs on eight European
countries blamed for blocking his claim to Greenland has dominated discussions
in Davos this week.
Mark
Carney, the Canadian prime minister, used his Davos speech on Tuesday to warn
mid-sized countries to unite in the face of US “coercion”. “Middle powers must
act together, because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” he said.
Trump
took direct aim at Carney in his speech, claiming that Canada had had “a lot of
freebies” from the US. “Canada lives because of the US: remember that, Mark,
next time you make your statements.”
Carney
was just one of a string of targets in the speech, which lasted well over an
hour. These included Switzerland, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the
outgoing Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, and the Somali-born
congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
By
contrast, Trump said he had a “very good relationship with [Russia’s] President
[Vladimir] Putin and President Xi [Jinping of China].”
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